[Sca-cooks] Custard (was Re: Easter Weekend at Hampton Court)

Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius adamantius1 at verizon.net
Fri Mar 28 14:57:34 PDT 2008


On Mar 28, 2008, at 4:15 PM, Dragon wrote:
> Elise Fleming wrote:
>
>> Another hint involved making proper custards.  One should burst the
>> membrane of each yolk and allow the contents to drain out and then  
>> discard
>> the membrane.  I can see where the membrane (and its attached  
>> little white
>> thingy) would make the custard less smooth, but it sure is time- 
>> consuming
>> if one is using lots of yolks!
> ---------------- End original message. ---------------------
>
> That sounds like a rather labor intensive method for achieving the
> same thing I get when I strain my custard through a fine colander
> before cooking it.
>
> The "attached little white thingy" is called the "chalaza".
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalaza

While we're on the subject, Mrs. Beeton maintained that only goose or  
duck eggs went into a really proper custard. I don't know that I  
agree, but it seems to be what she thought.

I actually got to dredge up the old restaurant formula (6 eggs or 12  
yolks, 1 quart liquid, half-cup sugar plus optional flavoring) to  
coach someone over the phone yesterday, someone who had never made  
custard and who scarcely knew what to look for, through a successful  
custard tart. That was kinda fun. I was getting calls every five  
minutes: "It's been in the oven fifteen minutes and it hasn't set.  
What did I do wrong??? What can I do about it??? Heeeeeelp!!!"

Adamantius (hmmm... warm gai dan tarts...)



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